holly+
who is holly herndon and her digital twin?
times released their AI 100 list on september 7th, 2023. alongside grimes’ open-sourced identity, grimesai, holly herndon is the only other musician to make the list. herndon’s career encapsulates the essence of an artistic revolution powered by technology unfolding before our screens.
holly herndon’s journey starts in academia, where she mastered her craft in electronic music at mills college and fueled her fascination of technology as a tool in music creation at stanford’s center for computer research in music & acoustics.
technaelogy is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
her discography showcases her innovative use of software both visually and auditorily. with technology as her muse, “chorus”, a single released in 2014, uses stems from youtube and skype to paint her fascination of an ever-expanding digital landscape while “platform”, her second album, paints a tale of the complex relationship we hold with technology.
in 2019, holly partnered with mat dryhurst and jules laplace, to introduce “spawn”, an artificial neural network trained to recognize and replicate human voices. the singing AI learned to create music through diverse vocal types, including herndon's own voice, leading to the creation of entirely new compositions.
in 2021, herndon and dryhurst joined forces again to introduce "holly+," a protocol designed to address concerns associated with deepfakes and distributed identity play. users can upload polyphonic tracks to holly.plus and the digital twin will reinterpret and perform the piece.
by decentralizing her own identity, holly+ marked a pioneering step in artist autonomy and has solidified herndon’s role as a leading figure in the intersection of music and technology.
it’s been quite the hiatus. i trust you’ve survived my absence and i’m sure you’ve been counting down the days until my return. ;)
i’ve celebrated another year around the sun under a blue supermoon and i’m excited to welcome my favorite season, fall. with the texas heat, celebrating with pumpkin spice and everything nice is sadly still a distant dream. fall has always been a season of new beginnings to me. my fresh start begins with the gre, as i’m ramping up to go back to school.
i’m at a crossroads in deciding my major; music technology or human-computer interaction. i’ll pen more about my experiences as an applicant and (hopefully!) as a student.
- nae
references:
youtube videos used to create this post
good luck with your education journey!! 🧡